Ambassador Sondland, Watergate, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Sharing is caring!

Other than making the observation that evangelicals are way too involved in U.S. politics these days, I’ve studiously avoided writing about politics in my posts. I have no plans to change course now. For that reason, I’m not going to respond to any comments made here.

I was, however, struck yesterday by a remarkable parallel between Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s reversal of his testimony to congress regarding the need for a quid pro quo from Kiev to free up military aid from the U. S. and Chuck Colson’s experience in Watergate.

Sondland reversed his testimony because a parade of high level administration officials directly contradicted him in their congressional testimony. Facing the specter of jail time for lying to Congress, Ambassador Sondland promptly wrote an addendum to his testimony reversing his observation that there was no quid pro quo. This from a man who is a rock solid supporter of President Trump.

I’m bringing Ambassador Sondland’s reversal up to prove a point: very few people are willing to suffer for another person’s lie, a fact that was not lost on the late Chuck Colson, President Nixon’s Special Counsel and one of the “Watergate Seven” during the Watergate impeachment scandal: “Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks” he often pointed out.

Self preservation is a powerful solvent when it comes to the act of covering up a lie. And when multiple people are involved, the odds of all of them sacrificing themselves for what they know is a lie become astronomically absurd.

This brings me to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christians believe it is an actual historical occurrence based on several strands of historical evidence. One of those strands of evidence is the fact that none of Jesus’s 12 apostles ever recanted their testimony. Writes Chuck Colson:

I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.

And, I might add, the apostles maintained their witness even though most of them were martyred for it.

You may dispute the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But you cannot dispute that twelve men held fast until the day they died, even in the face of intense opposition, to their conviction that they saw Jesus risen from the dead.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

For the past sixteen years New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry

Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.

_______________________________________________________________

Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

_______________________________________________________________